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Acta Scientiarum. Education

Print version ISSN 2178-5198On-line version ISSN 2178-5201

Acta Educ. vol.44  Maringá  2022  Epub Mar 01, 2022

https://doi.org/10.4025/actascieduc.v44i1.53761 

HISTÓRY AND PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION

Didactic-pedagogical knowledge and the philosophy textbook

Antonio Macêdo dos Santos1  * 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8971-600X

Lenilda Rêgo Albuquerque de Faria1 
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3887-7030

1Centro de Ensino de Línguas em Rio Branco, Universidade Federal do Acre, Rodovia BR 364, Km 04, 69920-900, Rio Branco, Acre, Brasil.


ABSTRACT.

The article reflects a research with philosophy teachers from Rio Branco, AC, done at PPGE of the Federal University of Acre. Her theme is didactic pedagogical knowledge of teachers. Its object is philosophy textbook. The following problem was raised: ‘What didactic pedagogical knowledge the philosophy teacher may mobilize to organize their work with philosophy textbook?’ The general aim consist of analyze the place that the textbook takes in the work of the high school philosophy teacher. It is about a qualitative research, which prioritized interview with philosophy teachers as a source of information of object analisys. As a whole the research method is inserted in the context historical dialectical. The theoretical frame is guided on pedagogical criticismo. Thus, with regards conception of education, in Saviani (2005) and Viera Pinto (2010). Regarding to didactic pedagogical knowledge references are Pimenta (2015), Libâneo (2015) and Rodrigo (2009). The results show that didactic pedagogical knowledge of teachers, besides being linked their evaluation the language of the book and the quality of its activities, lead teachers to consider the book as the most suitable material in theory to organize a class, but not enough material. So that, the textbook perform a supporting role. Despite this. In conclusion for the teacher to choose a textbook he should consider still other factors be they community or school factors.

Keywords: textbook; didactic pedagogical; philosophy teacher; human formation; mediation

RESUMO.

O artigo apresenta uma pesquisa com professores de filosofia de Rio Branco, AC, realizada no âmbito do PPGE da Universidade Federal do Acre. A temática dela são os conhecimentos didático-pedagógicos dos professores e o objeto é o livro didático de filosofia. A esse objeto foi posto o seguinte problema: ‘Quais conhecimentos didático-pedagógicos o professor de filosofia pode mobilizar para organizar seu trabalho com o livro didático de filosofia?’. O objetivo geral consistiu em analisar o lugar que o livro didático assume no trabalho do professor de filosofia do Ensino Médio. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de natureza qualitativa, que priorizou, como fonte de informações para análise do objeto, entrevistas com docentes de filosofia. Como um todo, o método da pesquisa está inserido no contexto do materialismo histórico-dialético. Isso justifica o referencial teórico pautado nas pedagogias críticas. Assim, no que se refere à concepção de educação, o estudo apoia-se em Saviani (2005) e Viera Pinto (2010). Quanto aos conhecimentos didático-pedagógico, as referências são Pimenta (2015), Libâneo (2015) e Rodrigo (2009). Os resultados apontam que os conhecimentos didático-pedagógicos dos professores, além de estarem ligados a avaliações deles sobre a linguagem do livro didático e à qualidade de suas atividades, levam os docentes a considerar o livro como sendo o material teoricamente mais indicado para organizar uma aula, mas não o material suficiente. De forma que ele exerce uma função coadjuvante. Não obstante, conclui-se que, para o professor ou professora escolher um livro didático, é ideal que se considerem, ainda, outros fatores, sejam eles comunitários ou escolares.

Palavras-chave: livro didático; didático-pedagógico; professor de filosofia; formação humana; mediação

RESUMEN.

El artículo refleja una investigación de profesores de filosofía de Rio Branco, AC, realizado en el marco del PPGE de la Universidad Federal de Acre. Su temática son los conocimientos didácticos-pedagógicos de los docentes y el objeto es el libro de texto de filosofía. A esto se le planteó el siguiente problema: ‘¿Cuáles conocimientos didácticos-pedagógicos puede movilizar el profesor de filosofía para organizar su trabajo con el Libro de texto de filosofía?’. El objetivo general consiste en analizar el lugar que ocupa el Libro Didáctico en el trabajo del profesor de Filosofía de la Escuela Secundaria. Se trata de una investigación cualitativa, que priorizó entrevistas con profesores de filosofía como fuente de información para el análisis del objeto. En su conjunto, el método de investigación se inserta en el contexto del materialismo histórico-dialéctico. Esto justifica el marco teórico basado en pedagogías críticas. Así, con respecto a la concepción de educación, nos apoyamos en Saviani (2005) y Viera Pinto (2010). Con respecto a los conocimientos didáctico-pedagógico los referentes son Pimenta (2015), Libâneo (2015) y Rodrigo (2009). Los resultados indican que el conocimiento didáctico-pedagógico de los docentes, además de estar ligado a sus evaluaciones sobre el lenguaje del libro de texto y la calidad de sus actividades, lleva a los profesores a considerar el libro como el material teóricamente más adecuado para organizar una clase, pero el material no es suficiente. Entonces, el libro de texto ejerce un papel de apoyo. No obstante, se concluye que para que el docente elija un libro de texto lo ideal es considerar otros factores, sean ellos comunitarios o escolares.

Palabras-clave: libro de texto; didáctico-pedagógico; profesor de filosofía; formación humana; mediación

Introduction5

Historically, the teaching of philosophy in Brazil is always at risk of missteps and can be studied from different angles. Among these, one that can be further explored is the philosophy textbook. From this perspective, this article presents a survey carried out with teachers in this area of knowledge from the state network in Rio Branco, AC. The object of the research is the philosophy textbook and the problem is to know 'What didactic-pedagogical knowledge can the philosophy teacher mobilize to organize their work with the philosophy textbook?'. The general objective is to analyze the place that the textbook assumes in the work of the teacher of this subject in High School. Thus, we seek to conceptualize didactic-pedagogical knowledge from the point of view of contemporary thinkers of didactics, to understand the relationship that the teacher establishes with textbooks in the development of the class and to present possible indications for the development of a critical/reflective relationship between teachers in regarding that tool.

In this way, we chose, at first, to describe the research procedures and the professional profile of the teachers, in order to better understand the report that they themselves weave about the use of the textbook. The theoretical framework was focused on the concepts of education and didactic-pedagogical. The authors who base the reflections on the concept of education are Saviani (2005) and Vieira Pinto (2010). For matters related to the didactic-pedagogical, the references are Pimenta (2015), Libâneo (2015) and Rodrigo (2009). Based on this, we finally analyzed the didactic-pedagogical knowledge of teachers in relation to philosophy textbooks.

The study has its foundations in the theory of materialism and in the historical-dialectical method. The category that will guide the reflections is mediation. Education, school and didactics are understood as mediating structures in the process of students' human formation. In dialectical-historical materialism, man is not just a product of materials, he modifies such forces; it is a product of nature and also modifies it through work, to which a new technique is incorporated. Thus, Araújo (2010) comments, knowing something objectively is a matter of practice, and not only of theory, and philosophy has the dual task of offering theoretical knowledge and, through knowledge, illuminating the action that changes the world. The object is apprehended by the senses, not by a mechanical adjustment between subject and object. In this relationship, objects receive the imprint of human strength.

It is worth reflecting, before describing the research procedures, that, in the path between the appearance and the essence of the phenomena, a set of mediations (con)form a complex and rich investigative process linked to the historical-social issues of the researcher, of the research itself and the conditions for its realization in its various contexts. We experience the reflexive comings and goings, the abandonments, the new paths, the incorporations and the possible syntheses, in the face of the objective conditions with which we deal in the effort to understand concretely how a phenomenon manifests itself, as it is. However, indispensably, knowing the possibilities and ways of how it can stop 'being as it is', understanding its genesis, its development and its transformation.

For this task, we seek to rely on what is most advanced in terms of the theory of knowledge, pedagogical science, didactics and the teaching of philosophy. But, as reality 'is', 'in itself', is much broader and richer than our intellectual efforts, and, for this very reason, the advancement of knowledge demands that it be a collective task, the results of research can be translated into new points of departure and criticism.

The research procedures

The first step in carrying out the study was to know in which schools to find the teachers. The criterion was to find the list of the three largest regular schools in Rio Branco in terms of number of students from the Secretaria de Educação. This information was given to us. The research was then started in 2018, using the 2017 list as a reference (Table 1).

In total, five teachers were interviewed. This is a limited number, however, there are objective reasons for this. Initially, the forecast was for nine teachers. However, the 2019 school year, in which the interviews were conducted, was very troubled. It started almost in April and there was a lot of delay in filling teachers from all areas. Three teachers verbally expressed that they would no longer like to participate in the research. The first one was due to the revision of agreements between the City Hall and the State, which led him to leave High School. Two others had scheduling problems. There was another contribution that we chose not to use due to the notable limitations in the answers given by the interviewee.

This did not impact the results obtained by the research, as the contributions of the teachers interviewed proved to be, as we will see later, loaded with meanings and intuitions that broaden the debate on the topic. On the other hand, if we had more contributions, more angles and alternatives for understanding the problem could possibly have been presented. We could have looked for more teachers, but the deadlines didn't allow it.

To draw a profile of the teachers we heard, a socio-professional questionnaire was distributed to each individual, consisting of 11 questions, with 05 alternative answers for each one. The categories that served as the basis for the formulation of the questions were: initial teacher training, postgraduate courses, salary range, teaching time in philosophy teaching, other subjects taught and the number of shifts, schools, students and classes in which they work.

The initial training of some teachers is not in philosophy. This may have some influence on teaching work, as the approach to philosophical concepts by the teacher trained in another area can happen detached from the interpretive traditions that Higher Education has when studying philosophers such as Hegel or Marx, for example.

Most teachers have specialization in the area in which they teach. We note, therefore, concern with professional qualification. They receive a salary above R$ 3,000.00. It is a sign that they work in two or three shifts and, in some cases, in two schools. Almost all of them have permanent contracts, but they usually take on other subjects to complete the minimum workload (20 hours/year). The number of classes is expressive. For teachers who have more than 20 classes (or two contracts), considering that, on average, each one has 40 students, the number of students is close to 1000. They are workers used to the rhythm of the classroom and subjects of an intense professional life. These characteristics are common in the urban school context of the capital of Acre.

In the State of Acre, the Orientações curriculares para o Ensino Médio’ (Acre, 2010) prescribe that working with philosophy in the classroom enables students to exercise their reason autonomously. According to the document, there are two philosophical meanings for this: the imperative of the temple at Delphi - ‘Know thyself’ - and the Kantian project of enlightenment.

Table 1 Visited Schools. 

Institution Number of students
State School High School 1 948
State School High School 2 1509
State School High School 3 1842

Source: SEE/AC.

In these senses, the development of teaching must be given, fundamentally, through the reading of philosophical texts. This proposal is based on Severino's (2013) idea that, through a text, the world only reveals itself if it is in a context, which must be considered in three ways. At first, there is a historical context in which whoever wrote the text lived. The second is the context of the work, from which a fragment that is studied was taken, and the third context is in the philosophical tradition of thought and the problem addressed by the philosopher in that text.

A single reading is not enough to understand a philosophical text. It is recommended that you start with an approximation reading. From a second reading, understanding of the text should begin, underlining terms, expressions, names, etc. After these highlights that appear, a third reading is performed, in which the problem raised by the author is presented, thir arguments to defend their thesis, its coherence, etc. Another step of this methodology is the objectification of what was studied, through the elaboration of syntheses, whose objective is to verify the level of understanding obtained about the text read. The last step is the reflection on the theme, based on the elements indicated in the text and relating them to the students' everyday issues.

This methodological proposal is to be developed in a content organized as follows: in the 1st. Year: a) What is Philosophy? b) Nature and work; c) Human being as a social animal. In the 2nd year: a) Knowledge as a philosophical problem; b) Formal and dialectical logic; c) Philosophy of Science; 3rd. Year: a) Aesthetics; b) Ethics; c) Political Philosophy.

These guidelines will certainly be revised, as the implementation of the New High School and the Base Nacional Comum Curricular (BNCC) must require adaptations. Regarding the teaching of philosophy, we have many uncertainties, which are accentuated even more, not only by the appearance of the training itineraries provided for in the BNCC, but also regarding the understanding that philosophy appears as a mandatory content, but not as a discipline. In a context of changes of notoriety so highlighted in the way of educating, it is imperative to think of a conception of education and of didactic-pedagogical that help in the analysis of the reports of the philosophy teachers that we heard.

Education and didactics: the theoretical foundation of the research

We have organized the content of this section into three axes. In the first, the focus was to present a conception of education; the second was centered on the definition of didactic-pedagogical and, finally, we sought an approximation between didactics and philosophy. All these moments will be presented in a non-sectioned way and are connected in the idea of providing the student, immersed in an exaggeratedly technical culture, a human formation.

To forge a conception of education, we base ourselves on the contributions of authors who move through historical-dialectical materialism. We can delve deeper into two dimensions that were most accentuated in the bibliographic reviews: the dimension of education as an instrument for the transmission of science and the dimension of the self-preservation of society amalgamated to the meaning of individual existence.

As for the first dimension, Saviani (2005) understands education as a human phenomenon. For the author, what differentiates human beings from other animate beings is the characteristic of having to continually produce their existence. Therefore, instead of adapting to nature, he needs to adapt nature to himself through work. This, in turn, has two basic records: material and non-material. Material labor is that which implies material subsistence in production on an ever-increasing and complex scale.

The 'non-material', continues Saviani (2005), refers to the production of ideas, concepts, values, symbols, habits, skills and attitudes. It is, therefore, the production of knowledge, both about nature and about culture. It is here, in this category, that education is situated. According to Saviani, “[…] the educational work is the act of producing, directly and intentionally, in each single individual, the humanity that is historically and collectively produced by the group of men” (Saviani, 2005, p. 13). Thus, the object of education concerns both the identification of cultural elements that need to be assimilated by individuals of the human species, so that they become human, and, at the same time, the discovery of the most adequate ways to achieve this objective. In this, the classic has a preponderant place. Classic is what resists time in the ability to communicate ideas, like a good philosophy book, for example.

In this way, the school, the place where education is institutionalized, concerns elaborate knowledge and not spontaneous knowledge; to systematized knowledge and not to fragmented knowledge; erudite rather than popular culture. In other words, the school, in its contribution to the formation of the human being, sticks to scientific knowledge. The beacon for scientific knowledge in our culture is Greek. There are three ways to refer to knowledge in Greek, according to Saviani (2005). The first is doxa, opinion, as when someone says 'I think'; knowledge, in turn, uncritical and/or affective. Sofia, wisdom, which, in fact, is more the predicate of one who is wise; and, finally, the episteme, which more properly indicates methodical and systematized knowledge. Saviani's (2005) conclusion is that in sofia a young person will hardly be wiser than an old man and, in episteme, a young person may know more than an old person.

Respecting the basic idea of human formation or human production, Pinto (2010) makes his considerations about the concept of education, focusing on the education-society relationship. According to Vieira Pinto (2010, p. 31), “[…] education is the process by which society trains its members in its image and according to its interests”. Therefore, there is no neutrality in education. There is a game of forces and interests that are born within society itself. Consequently, education is the 'formation' of man by society; it is the process by which it acts on the development of human beings in an attempt to integrate them into the current social way of being and to lead them to accept and seek the ends that are seen as collective.

Structuring Vieira Pinto's concept, we can present it in two columns: an existential and a historical one. Education as an existential fact refers to the way in which “[...] man makes himself a man” (Pinto, 2010, p. 32). Thus, education configures man in all his reality. It is the process by which man acquires his essence, not in a metaphysical, but in a real or social sense. In this process, there is a dependence on the concept of 'man' or 'human being'.

The second column, the historical one, refers to the understanding that every education program is, by nature, incomplete, unrealizable, because its very execution alters the quality of the elements that compose it (the student, the teacher, the methods, the purposes etc.). Education, according to Vieira Pinto (2010), is historical because it is a process of person's formation for the new in culture, work, and the person’s self-awareness.

Society conditions and disposes all of person's individual experiences, briefly transmits to the person all the knowledge acquired in the group's past and collects the contributions that the creative power of each individual engenders and offers to his community. In this sense, society creates man for itself, giving inputs for the construction of its existence. The place par excellence of this institutionalized education for science and for the formation of the individual as society thinks, in addition to the meaning of its own existence, is the school. Institutionalization occurs within the didactic-pedagogical process.

In this sense, Pimenta (2015) explains that didactics is the epistemological area, with its own statute and objects, which aims to support the teaching and learning processes, understanding them as praxis of social inclusion and human and political emancipation. Therefore, it constitutes a disciplinary area par excellence in the training of teachers with the potential to re-signify the process of teacher training, conceiving it as an area of Pedagogy, which has teaching and learning, historically situated, as an object.

It is certainly possible to interpret Franco's (2013) words in this perspective. For the author, didactics, whether as a theoretical field or as a social practice, works as a sounding board for the challenges that the socioeconomic and political context proposes to the educational task. This has been happening since the 17th century, when Comenius, when creating didactics, seeking a method of teaching everything to everyone, responded to the challenges of the then recent Protestant reform, which proposed the universalization of knowledge with a view to suppressing the religious and political conflicts of the time.

Thus, Santoro Franco (2013) understands that didactics invites the teacher to reflect on their attitude towards reality, to think about the meaning of the act of teaching in the given circumstances. It indicates thinking about that student who will receive the teaching, passively or actively, as a subject who should refer to the practices adopted and the dignity that will or will not be imprinted on such practices, which, according to the author, is something fundamental to the teaching practice.

In turn, Pedagogy, explains Pimenta (2015), is the science that has the role of studying educational praxis with a view to training education professionals, including the teacher, to promote the conditions of a humanizing education. Its object of study is human education in the various modalities in which it manifests itself in social practice. Pedagogy investigates, more specifically, the nature of the educational phenomenon, the contents and methods of education, the investigative procedures.

We can also list the contribution of Libâneo (2015), for whom the didactics and the didactics of the subjects consist of the systematization of knowledge and practices that are referred to the foundations, conditions and ways of carrying out the teaching and learning of the contents, skills, values, aiming at the development of the students' mental capacities and personality formation. As we can see, Libâneo indicates that the formation of a subject is what is on the agenda at the moment when didactics is understood as a process that guarantees unity, coherence and logic between learning and teaching. This care for the human person is also the horizon of Philosophy. Hence, it is understood the purpose of teaching philosophy in high school and relating it to didactics.

According to Severino (2014), when teaching philosophy in high school, the objective is not to provide students with an academic erudition, but to help them develop a way of apprehending and experiencing their own human condition, the maturation of an experience worthy of the dignity of that condition; experience from which they can conduct their historical existence. According to the author, to achieve this purpose, the mediation of the teaching act is necessary. The raison d'être of teaching, says the author, is to articulate the meanings of human experience, conceptual and evaluative, accumulated in culture, with those that must be raised and assumed by young people in their daily lives. The challenge that young people face in their concrete existence is to interpret the historical conditions in which they find themselves and that develop in their daily lives so that they can guide their social practice (Severino, 2014).

To complement this reflection by Severino (2014), we can refer to Ghedin (2009), for whom it will be through meditation, a foundation of philosophical reflection and the teaching of philosophy, that an understanding of the meanings of human experience can be reached. For the author, philosophical meditation is a constructor of meanings in a world without meanings. It is a proposition of understanding to build a meaningful horizon for life. What we see, in the author's perspective, is that individuals no longer conceive of their identity as a historical construction of humanity. This way of conceiving an identity, in addition to being contradictory, “[…] marks the barbarism of which we are victims” (Ghedin, 2009, p. 39). In the shadow of this are installed all the ideologies that massacre the human being, making one a hostage to the lack of horizon that leads one to the understanding of one in front of the other, complements the author.

These reflections by Severino (2014) and Ghedin (2009) can be carried out through teaching action. The teacher provides a student meeting with a thinker or philosophical current that, possibly, will help the student to interpret the meanings of himself of herself social practice. However, the dialogue with philosophers for this interpretation does not happen serenely. A crucial issue must be taken into account: student motivation. According to Rodrigo (2009), the first step for a teacher would be to accept the situation in fact.

To accept that

[...] our task goes against the current of our students' cultural needs. Nothing in them, or at least in their commons, asks for Philosophy. We give them what they don't want, what they can't want right now (it's too soon), and teaching Philosophy, whatever the conception one has of this teaching, is trying to create an appetite that doesn't exist (Grácio & Dias, 2004, p. 6).

The metaphor, however empirical and disconcerting it may be, must give way to another one: that even though the appetite does not yet exist, the organism needs nutrients, because what is in progress is the student's6 human formation. After all, no one is born human, they become such. To overcome the barrier noted by Grácio and Dias (2004), Rodrigo (2009) understands that the way forward is to devise didactic strategies capable of establishing some forms of relationship between this knowledge and the cultural references, values, representations and interests of students.

In approaching philosophical thought, high school students face considerable difficulties. Rodrigo (2009) notes that they, especially the poorest, often do not even understand what they read. Thus, the teacher cannot expect to be able to use the philosopher's text. Hence the importance of the textbook. However, Rodrigo (2009) emphasizes that the 'second text' character of the textbook is problematic, as it inevitably works with a certain philosophical interpretation that can be questionable and contribute more to distance than to bring the student closer to the thinker or topic treated. Despite the risk, the didactic text constitutes a valuable device for the teacher, mobilizing didactic-pedagogical knowledge, to make the conceptual and theoretical complexity of philosophy more accessible to the student.

The didactic-pedagogical knowledge of teachers in the use of philosophy textbooks in High School

This last section is organized into three topics that bring the contributions of some of the teachers interviewed about the philosophy textbook. They concern the criteria for choosing a particular book by the teacher, the space that the book occupies in the classroom and, finally, the issue of teacher mediation between the book and the student. Taking care of the teachers' anonymity, we chose to name each one of an ancient philosopher.

The essentials of choosing a textbook

According to Lajolo (1996), opting for a book needs to result from a conscious exercise of the teacher's freedom in the careful planning of school activities, which will reinforce the teacher's subject position in all the practices that constitute one teaching task. In their daily lives, according to Lajolo (1996), the teacher rewrites the book, thus reaffirming themself in his pedagogical practice and becoming an almost co-author of the book.

The first question to which the interviewees were submitted was, therefore, regarding the choice of material, of the book that will accompany the work in the classroom for at least three academic years. The intention of this question was to understand whether the teacher participates in the choice of material and which criteria they use when positioning themselves for one or another didactic manual.

Teacher Sapho, who amalgamated selection criteria and proposals for overcoming the reading difficulties that most high school students have, said that

[...] images count a lot; nowadays, there is a slightly more progressive view, where the student can make an adequate reading [...], that is, can find the information in the text properly, level 1, the basics. But there are students who reach high school even without level 1. Finding the information, sometimes even the topic [...] he has difficulty talking to you and identifying it. Having a global vision, level 2, reading the text and globally understanding the information, a central idea that is in this text. Level 3: Relate inter-text and non-text information. That is, research, problems outside of what is written by the author. Cannot raise hypotheses, level 4. [...] Then make a critical assessment of what you read. If the author explained it well, if it is coherent with the current needs of Brazil and the state of Acre. So the student has to be a competent reader. Then you have to see if the book will do that. Progressive is that: visual reading (the images), and even text reading (Sapho, q. 1).

Here, we can prioritize the criterion of the language used by the teacher. Following her understanding, the aspects of graphics and images constitute a way of attracting the student's attention or, when applicable, a way of attenuating and initiating the overcoming of their reading difficulty. In order to better understand this issue of the use of images in a book, Lajolo (1996) reinforces that it is not just verbal language. It is necessary, according to the author, that all the languages it uses are equally sufficient. Thus, the printing of the textbook must be clear, the binding must be resistant and its illustrations, diagrams and tables must intensify, maximize, refine the meaning of the contents and attitudes that these languages illustrate, diagram or table.

In this linguistic harmony of the textbook, we can identify exactly the function it fulfills. Still in the 1960s, Renato Sêneca Fleury stated that textbooks are, “[…] ultimately a suggestion and not a recipe” (Fleury, 1961, p. 176)7. Thus, it does not replace the teacher and its main functions are to standardize and delimit the subject, to present to teachers methods and processes judged as efficient by their authors to improve the teaching results and to make available to their readers drawings, prints, texts of difficult to access or very rare8.

Another criterion taken into account by the teachers and which is linked to this one of language concerns the exercises/activities. According to Teacher Sappho,

We look at [...] how the activities are at the end of the chapters: if they are interesting, if they are possible for the students to achieve. Because, sometimes, the activities are not very coherent with our reality, here in the community and in the school. So, we have to make a proximal. There is the ideal and there is the real. We cannot remain only in reality, because reality is very harsh; [...] and also we cannot go to a language that is too deep, too ideal. We have to find a middle ground. So, the book that has these more proximal characteristics, we usually choose it (Sapho, q. 1).

Looking closely at this aspect of the exercises is important. Lajolo (1996) states that a book can be inadequate precisely because of the monotony of the exercises and the lack of meaning of the activities it proposes. This lack of meaning is a language that does not communicate. Coherence, as the teacher points out in the quote above, always concerns language. What is under discussion is not exactly the philosophical language. As much as it may be misunderstood or understood with remarkable difficulties, it will not suffer damage, as it is at the level of a classic language, to use Saviani's (2005) idea. The problematic question that this language raises is related to the objective of studying philosophy in high school. This objective seems to have been well formulated by Severino (2001): to provide high school students with a formation worthy of their human condition. If the message doesn't arrive, if the language doesn't help, will this formation go from potency to act? Possibly, but with fragile philosophical premises. Having observed these essential elements in choosing a collection, the question arises of how to handle this material.

The place of the textbook in the construction and development of the class

To understand how teachers use the textbook, we tried to find out from them the space that the book occupies in the organization of classes. When formulating this question, our intention was to understand how they planned to use the book, at what moments in the class, and, above all, what their intention was when applying an activity of the material. In general, the book is seen as a 'support'. Teacher Aristotle claims that he does not use

[...] the book as a manual. When choosing a textbook, you cannot find one that is complete, so it is impossible to follow it as a manual. I use the book more as a support to work with the contents of the planning, the course plan and the didactic sequence. The book is just a support. It's not the only one. We elaborate on the exploration of this material that is in the book, selecting the best questions, the best texts, what suits you best. Well, I think planning itself, the soul of planning is intentionality. What am I planning for? With this understanding, I see that the textbook is not a manual, in the common expression, it is not a Bible. [...] So, I have a plan that was born from a broader, institutionalized direction, and the textbook in which I will find what planning needs... which is foreseen as intentionality, which I need to execute in this planning and, therefore, the textbook is not enough in itself. It is a reference that generates questions for the student to expand his or her knowledge from some texts in the textbook, which can be a starting point. From this, the student will expand to other readings, including interdisciplinarity, and this creates a more satisfactory range for the student (Aristotle, q. 2).

This contribution can be organized into two parts. Initially, we can reflect on the book as a manual/support and then on the issue of planning. As for the first, Aristotle's observation takes on a more refined importance when he notes that, when choosing a textbook, one cannot find a complete one, a manual, which one can always count on. As a support, it serves as na aid, according to his speech, the basis for an impulse in the understanding of a certain topic. If the book is more suited to the understanding of this topic, it will be used.

This distinction is not common. Rodrigo (2009) states that the etymology of the term 'manual' expresses its didactic nature well. In Latin, manualis, translates the Greek enkeiridion, designating small-format, manageable, frequently used books, 'to bring with you'. Basically, it designates, continues Rodrigo (2009), an aggregate of notions or summary of teaching contents, whose systematization is often presented in a schematic way, using resources such as titles and subtitles, numbered paragraphs, schemes, graphics, with the objective of serving as memory support and facilitate a certain mental organization. The author refers precisely to the old manuals, but extends the reflections to the textbooks of today.

With regard to planning, Teacher Aristotle says that the soul of this is precisely intentionality. This intentionality was put into words through the question “What am I planning for?” (Aristotle, q. 2). In this intentionality, the book is not, as the teacher says, at the center. It is a reference that generates questions for the student. Libâneo (1990), in 'Didática', states that there are three modalities of planning, articulated with each other: the school plan, the teaching plan and the lesson plan. Planning, in a generic way, can be understood as “[…] a process of rationalization and coordination of teaching action, articulating school activity and the problem of the social context” (Libâneo, 1990, p. 222).

This social context, touched by planning, ends up being problematized and taking on genuinely political contours. It is the way in which the teacher does not let others decide the directions his or her work should take (Libâneo, 1990). A little while ago, Teacher Aristotle explained that planning is born from an institutionalized, broader direction, and the textbook contains what this planning needs. In this sense, Libâneo (1990) states that, bearing in mind one conception of education and school, one position on the social and pedagogical objectives of the teaching process, as well as one position and knowledge in relation to the subject one teaches, the teacher prepares his or her planning. To this end, he or she consults the official program of the subject, recommended by the State, the textbook and other materials that can also function as questioning generators for the student.

The textbook appears, therefore, as a generator of questions within an organization of didactic situations. For Theodoro da Silva (1996), if there is a danger in the use of a textbook, it is its vigor, which sometimes comes from a “[…] teacher's cognitive anemia” (Silva, 1996, p. 12). Because, while the latter may lose weight and importance in the teaching process, the former may gain prominence and reach the sphere of indispensability. From a means that it should be, it can become an end in itself. Also Lajolo (1996), reflecting on the role that the teacher must have, observes that there is no book that is teacher-proof, because the worst book can be good in the classroom of a good teacher and the best book falls apart in the hands of a limited teacher. Whatever the book, continues Lajolo (1996), it is always and only a book. With all the risks, the relationship with philosophical thoughts begins, at school, with textbooks. What is the students' reaction to the book?

The student, the textbook and teacher mediation

On this topic, the question that was raised in the interview with the teachers was how they could synthesize the students' reaction to the textbook, from gestures to expressions. The answers we obtained revolve around the same characteristic: estrangement, understood as resistance, although other aspects have appeared here and there. For teacher Seneca,

This experience [...] is very negative. Today there is so much talk [...] about the School without a party, there is no school without ideology, but the most difficult thing is for a teacher to manage to get the student to read two pages of the Philosophy book, [...] It is said that the teacher can make a student's mind to be a Marxist or a capitalist, when, in fact, we have difficulty getting the student to read two pages of a handout or a book to do a work. [...]. That's why we often don't reach the goal. I spend six months working ethics on the 2nd. year of high school. At the end of the year, the student is in the same way in relation to moral posture, [...] he or she thinks the same things about nature, about the environment, they do not change their attitude, I think precisely because what we say passes, what is written is easier for us to refer to, but there is still no culture of dedication [...] to reading [...] a book (Seneca, q. 4).

A point that we can highlight in the teacher's speech, which he connects to the reading difficulty, is the difficult malleability in the students' thinking. Since this is the situation, it should be noted that the student is a concrete, real being, a synthesis of multiple determinations and objective situations that determine his consciousness. This prevents us from taking them only in their phenomenal appearance or in their pseudo-concretity, to use Kosík's (1995) concept. The teacher who is aware of this condition and who acts intentionally will not expect the student to spontaneously develop a love of philosophy. It is up to the teaching work to remove them from inertia, to mobilize them for knowledge.

Approaching the final considerations, we can notice that the teachers' statements were almost always corroborated by the studies of renowned researchers in the field of education. This can serve as an indication that the teachers' commitment to the choice of textbooks is accentuated. There is always a concern to make a connection between the subject studied and the real life that one has. There must be this affinity, since life conditions the understanding of things.

Final considerations

By observing the path that the research was tracing, we identified some of its most relevant moments. At first, its move was to find a target audience and listen to them. This helped us to have a profile of this audience of teachers. Among other things, we had to briefly present the 'Curriculum Guidelines for Secondary Education in Acre' and identify the meanings of philosophy and methodologies proposed for the context of the state of Acre.

In order to think about didactic-pedagogical issues in the teaching of philosophy in High School, it was necessary to outline a concept of education and didactic-pedagogical. Essentially, the research revealed that the concept of education must be understood by the category of mediation. In fact, education was seen as a mediation between human beings and science (Saviani, 2005) and between human beings and society (Pinto, 2010). Then, when it was necessary to explain the didactic-pedagogical aspects, the study pointed out that the didactics are for the humanization of the person, since no one is born human, but is formed as such by education.

The results more in tune with the research objectives were described in the last topic of this text. In the choice that teachers make of the book they will use in the school where they work, their didactic-pedagogical knowledge is manifested. In the interviews, the teachers - who have between 5 and 30 years of experience in teaching philosophy - described how it is necessary to properly handle a textbook to observe which of them has a language that is closest to their student.

On this aspect of language it is difficult to strike a balance, because a book has many languages. With regard to written language, the problem takes on greater proportions, since there are high school students with a notorious reading deficit and philosophy texts, even didactic ones, always retain traces of conceptual aridity, typical of philosophical study. A positive point to overcome this deficit is the use, by the teachers, of other languages, especially the pictographic ones.

Afterwards, the teachers highlighted that the activities that the book contains should lead the student to think about their life context, so that they have meaning for them. They must therefore cross their reality. This is a simple but profound observation. Paraphrasing Marx, we could say that the understanding of life will determine their consciences to act in it. Still on the research results, for teachers the textbook has a supporting role in the teaching and learning process, which makes it very important in a classroom, but as a support. It is, in theory, the most suitable material to guide a class, but not enough material.

Thus, when necessary, the teacher can seek other means to help the theacer deal with the topic studied. This all ends up revealing a critical and independent stance on the part of the teacher in the way the book approaches this or that topic. On the other hand, the supporting role seems to be too much at times, as the teachers interviewed said that the reaction to the book is usually one of resistance.

The research contributes in the sense of emphasizing, to the teacher who must choose a book, that there are several aspects that must be considered for a more perfect choice, in addition to those that refer to the organization of contents. They are school, social, community aspects and so on. As for school aspects, it is common to hear from philosophy teachers that one or another book is not good, it is inadequate, it is flawed, etc. It is possible that some books really fall short in some aspects, but the book is always a book that has its objectives that may or may not be adequate to the way a school works. When we reinforce the community and social aspects, we refer to the fact that the teachers indicated that the language of a book has to reach the real, the concrete life of the student, that is, the material needs to help one to think about one problems more immediate.

The study can also contribute to investigations by other researchers, as the topic addressed is still little explored, as we could see in searches for the best-known indexers in the country. The research is still part of a moment of transition in the way of teaching philosophy in high school, due to the changes of the 2017 reform. Furthermore, and here we end, in the current arrangement of things, human formation has been an aided aspect of national education. So we find, to use an expression from Fernando de Azevedo, in a battle of humanism.

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5This article synthesizes a research at the master's level, defended on October 16, 2019, at the Progrma de Pós-Graduação em Educação from the Universidade Federal do Acre. O PPGE did not request registration of the research with the Ethics Committee, but required that all interviewed professors responded to the Free and Informed Consent Form (TCLE).

6'Student', by the way, has the etym in a-lere, which means to feed, to nourish.=

7This definition was the first to be detached from a legal context. Freitag, Costa, and Motta (1993) underline that the history of textbooks in Brazil is marked by a sequence of decrees, laws and government measures published from 1930 onwards, which began to have a clearer meaning when interpreted in the light of the structural changes that occurred from the New State to the 'New Republic'.

8Nowadays, the list of functions has differences. For Choppin (2004), the functions of the textbook are: a) referential: to interpret the teaching program; b) instrumental: use of learning methods and activities for the appropriation of skills and abilities; c) ideological: being a vector of language and social values; d) documentary: providing texts and images that can develop critical thinking.

14NOTE: The authors were responsible for designing, analyzing and interpreting the data; writing and critical review of the content of the manuscript and also approval of the final version to be published.

Received: May 19, 2020; Accepted: October 06, 2020

Lenilda Rêgo Albuquerque de Faria: Pedagogue. PhD in Education from the Faculdade de Educação da Universidade de São Paulo/FEUSP (Teaching Theories and School Practices). Associate Professor at UFAC, working at the Centro de Educação, Letras e Artes (CELA). Professor of the do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Educação (PPGE/UFAC). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8971-600X E-mail: lenildafaria@uol.com.br

Antonio Macedo dos Santos: Philosophy professor (PUCPR). Bachelor in theology (Pontifícia Faculdade Teológica Marianum - Rome, Italy). Master in Education from UFAC. Professor at the State Education Network of Acre. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3887-7030 E-mail: profantoniomacedo@gmail.com

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